San Francisco-based contract management company Ironclad has raised $23 million in Series B funding led by Sequoia Capital. Existing investors such as Accel and Y Combinator also participated in the round. Including this round, Ironclad has raised a total of $34 million in funding. And in conjunction with this round, Sequoia partner Jess Lee has joined Ironclad’s Board of Directors.
As contracts are foundational for every business deal, fragmented efforts and outdated technology make it harder for companies to handle basic tasks like preventing automatic renewals, tracking contractual obligations, and ensuring regulatory compliance. Many teams rely on software to manage the work, but legal teams still spend up to 70% of their time managing contracts manually in email, Word, and filing cabinets — which ends up costing companies millions of dollars in revenue and operating expenses. Ironclad is known for streamlining the legal workflows for companies such as Dropbox, Procore, and Reddit.
“Until now, we’ve been focused on solving the process problems that all organizations face when it comes to contracts. In this next phase, we’re focused on helping businesses unlock the wealth of information inside their contracts, so they can leverage them as strategic business assets,” says Jason Boehmig, co-founder and CEO of Ironclad.
Boehmig came up with the idea for Ironclad while working as a corporate attorney at Fenwick & West. After leaving the law firm, he built the prototype for Ironclad at Y Combinator with co-founder and CTO Cai GoGwilt (former Palantir Technologies engineer).
With this funding round, Ironclad is going to accelerate product development in key artificial intelligence areas such as smart contract intake and automated legal insights. And the company is going to fuel expansion to meet the growing demand from legal teams around the world. Ironclad’s revenue increased by 317% year-over-year. Plus employee headcount increased by 220%.
“I saw something in Ironclad that I typically only see in B2C companies—virality and community,” added Lee. “What starts as a tool for General Counsel or legal operations professionals often gains traction across teams and even across entire companies. Ironclad’s customers experience so much delight with the platform that they tell their friends in the legal community about it.”
